“And Prince Cefwyn keeps you prisoner here. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“What, don’t know?” She laughed and lost the laughter in gazing past him, where someone had walked close.

His guards had moved, and one put an arm between, wishing him to turn away. He bowed slightly before doing so. He knew that he had lingered longer than he should.  “Lady Orien!”

Emuin. Tristen looked, dismayed as the old man came strolling down the path.

“Your Grace,” Emuin said, also with a nod, “good day to you.” And after a silence, and sternly, “Good clay, Lady Orien.”

Orien stared at Emuin with what seemed intense dislike, whisked her beautiful skirts aside and walked away with small precise steps down the gravel path. The sun on her auburn hair shone like a haze of fire.

Tristen stared after her, and Emuin set a heavy hand on his shoulder, demanding his full and sober attention. “What was said?” Emuin asked.

“I told her my name, sir. She asked why I was a prisoner. She said this is her house. I thought it was Prince Cefwyn’s.”

Emuin seemed slightly out of breath. Emuin drew him to a bench and sat down, drawing him to sit beside him. “Do you feel yourself a prisoner?”

“I promised Prince Cefwyn I would not leave, and I—”

“Do you wish to leave?”

“I know nowhere else, sir. But if I am not welcome here, I know how to go back to the Road—if you give me leave.”

Emuin studied the gravel at their feet. “Do not,” he said at last, “trust that lady. She is one of the chiefest Prince Cefwyn meant when he warned you not to speak to strangers.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. He must say. Emuin commanded Orien, and Cefwyn perhaps commanded Emuin; he had tried in all he heard to make sense of it. Emuin was still out of breath, and he suspected that his guards, less attentive to their talk than he had thought, might have called Emuin, or Emuin might have seen what was going on from the windows above. He had never seen master Emuin in the garden before.

“As for going back to the Road,” Emuin said, “believe me that you are ill-prepared to wander it, young sir. There are very many dangerous people to account of.”

“Like Lady Orien?” He truly wanted an answer to his question. But surely Emuin remembered what he had asked, and chose not to answer.

“Lady Orien,” Emuin said, “and her sister, are Amefin, and this is, in good truth, their brother’s house. Heryn Aswydd is Duke of Amefel, and lords of Amefel did formerly style themselves kings—petty ones, but kings. Now they style themselves aethelings, which is the same thing, but they do so quietly. Prince Cefwyn is Lord Heryn’s guest, by the will of the King in Guelemara, who is not a petty king: Inéreddrin is King of Ylesuin, which is eighteen provinces, most of them far greater than rustic Amefel, which he also rules, above any duke. Prince Cefwyn is King Inéreddrin’s heir, and he does the King’s will here in Amefel as the King’s viceroy, which means the Duke of Amefel is obliged, being a loyal subject, to quarter the prince and his court, and his Guelen guard, both the Prince’s Guard, and the regulars. It also means the west wing of the Zeide is Prince Cefwyn’s so long as Prince Cefwyn pleases to remain in Amefel, which he will please to do so long as the King wills it. So you are the prince’s guest and ward, by right of Mauryl’s title in Ynefel, which His Highness chooses to honor at least by courtesy. So you are not answerable to Lady Orien except through him.”

There were a confusing number of Words in what master Emuin said.

But it meant Prince Cefwyn had taken care and charge of him. That was comforting to know. And he supposed that if he had to choose who was telling him things most true, it would most likely be master Emuin.  “I am glad to know that, sir,” he said.

“What are you reading? Is that Mauryl’s Book?”

“Yes, sir. But I still make no sense of it. The other the archivist lent me.”

Emuin picked the other book up from beside him and looked at it.

“Philosophy. Hardly a novice’s book. And you read this one, do you, with no difficulty with the words?”

“It seems a great deal of argument.”

“Argument, indeed.” Emuin seemed both thoughtful and amused.

“Do you like the scholar’s argument?”

“It seems to me, sir, the book is about Words, and I learn them.”

“And how else do you fill your hours?”

“l feed the birds. I walk.”

“You must be lonely.”

“I wish Mauryl were here. Or I were with Mauryl.”

“You Miss him.”

His throat went tight. “That is the Word, yes, master Emuin.” It was difficult to speak more than that. He looked away, wishing to speak, now that he had someone, if only for a moment, to speak to. But the words stuck fast. He thought Emuin would leave him in disinterest.

But Emuin set his hand on his shoulder, and left it there while he struggled to clear the lump in his throat, a strangely difficult matter now that there was someone beside him to notice.

“This morning,” Tristen began, as calmly as he could, “this morning I was thinking that, in Ynefel, I knew very little. I thought things changed a great deal. But now that I’ve been Outside, things inside the Zeide seem to change very little.”

“Very perceptive.” Emuin lowered his hand. “Things do change. But mostly common and noble folk alike live their lives inside safe walls, and never seek to go outside or travel as you’ve traveled ever in their lives.”

“Are most folk happy, sir? I see them laugh. But I can’t tell.”

“Nor can I,” Emuin said somberly. “Nor can I, Tristen.”

“Emuin, I’ve seen children.”

“Yes?”

“A man should have been a child. Ought he not? —And I never was.”

Emuin did not move, but stared at him with that troubled look any appearance of which he had learned to dread in people: it presaged fear.

But as if to deny it, Emuin smiled warmly and patted his knee. “If there is fault, be it that old reprobate Mauryl’s, never yours. Your consent was neither asked nor given. You exist. What you do now is in your power.

What Mauryl did regarding you—was not at all in your power.”

“Was I a child, Emuin? I don’t remember. Mauryl called me boy. But I think I never was.”

“Think of now, young sir. Now is yours. The future is yours.”

“But I was not a child, master Emuin. —What am 17” He began to shiver and Emuin’s hands seized hard on his arms. He wanted the old man to draw him into his arms as Mauryl had, to shelter him as Mauryl had, but there was, he believed now, no such shelter left in the world.

Held at arm’s length, he saw mirrored in Emuin’s eyes his own terror; he felt the grip that held his arms for comfort push him back more than draw him in—impossible either to escape or approach this man. Cefwyn had claimed him. Emuin had not.

“Ask no questions now,” Emuin said.

“You know, master Emuin. You could answer me. Could you not? All these people know. And they fear me.”

“Therein—” Emuin let go his arms and tapped him ungently on the chest. “There. Therein lies what you are, Tristen. Therein lies cause for them to fear you, or to adore you, or to trust your judgment as true-which is not the same thing, Tristen. And, believe me, you have more of choice in those matters than seems likely to you now.”

Tristen blinked; the pain in his chest unknotted at the old man’s rough touch and for a moment he breathed more easily. It was very much the sort of thing Mauryl would have said, and perhaps, though it lacked the tingle Mauryl’s cures had always set into him, there was a bit of healing about it.

“Important now that you stay here,” Emuin said, “mind what you’re told and stay safe while you learn.”

“You knew Mauryl. Did he speak to you about me? Did he warn you I was coming?”

“! last saw him years ago.”

“But you said that he taught you.”

“When I was as young as you seem now, he was my teacher. That was a long time ago.”